Belgrade airport reopens following incident

Belgrade airport CEO Sasa Vlaisavljevic told a media conference that the airport was being reopened following the removal of an EgyptAir plane from the main runway.

Belgrade airport CEO Sasa Vlaisavljevic told a media conference that the airport was being reopened following the removal of an EgyptAir plane from the main runway.

The runway has not been damaged and just had to be cleaned,” he said adding that he personally saw the aircraft being removed from the runway. “It did not take too many hours and there were no injuries or damage to equipment,” Vlaisavljevic said.

An EgyptAir B737 on a charter flight was left stranded on the runway of Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla airport just after 04:00 am on Wednesday when the wheels on its landing gear blocked and the tires caught fire during landing. There were no passengers on the aircraft and no one was injured in the incident.

Vlaisavljevic said he expects flights to resume during the day and continue on schedule on Thursday. “About 50 percent of flights are by Air Serbia and I informed that company’s CEO by the minute because this is the company’s home base,” he said.

Flights were redirected to the airport in Nis and other airports in the region. The airport CEO said Nis airport's capacities were full, adding that flights were initially redirected to that southern Serbian city.